I’m specifically talking about that American-style free market libertarianism (as opposed to say, libertarian socialism or even neoliberalism to an extent). It’s the ideology that says “the government shouldn’t be in the business of doing ______”. This notion that the most successful (hypothetical) economies are those that remove all regulations and restrictions, let business owners do their thing, keep taxes to a minimum, and keep the government limited to only the most basic functions like police, military, courts, and very limited infrastructure (so like, just roads and maybe rails and power lines, but the private sector should run the trains and power companies).

What China has done with its economy over the last 40 years clearly disproves these libertarian hopes and dreams that the free market is best and any state intervention is doomed to failure. This thought occurred to me when a libertarian family member asked why I wasn’t a libertarian, and because I didn’t want to really get into it with this person, I just let out “because China exists!” with a generous helping of derision. This person’s response was “well… but they’re aUtHoRiTaRiAn”, and clearly didn’t want to engage any more with me on it, and I was happy to oblige.

But I’ve been thinking about the implications of what I said since then. Looking objectively at what China has accomplished, it is inarguable that this could only be accomplished with heavy intervention by the state. Of course myself and everyone here knows that’s thanks to socialism, but even if you’re someone who thinks China is merely “state capitalist”… it strains credulity to think China could accomplish all it has and be on the trajectory it is now if it embraced free market libertarian capitalism and let “the market” decide all outcomes at every level.

I know it’s not just China, but the entire history of capitalism shows it’s needed heavy state intervention to keep things running. But highlighting China is I think useful just because it’s such a stark example that people can see with their own eyes right now. I especially enjoy how you can contrast present day China (the success of socialism) with Milei’s Argentina (the failure of libertarian economics).

  • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    22·
    15 days ago

    American libertarianism is fundamentally grounded in chauvanism. The logic at the root of it is:

    • The US is the greatest country on earth, and has the best chance of succeeding at anything out of every country (unstated)

    • The US government sucks

    • Therefore, all possible governments suck

    It’s a difficult brainworm to dislodge because they aren’t even conscious of their chauvanism. They’ll happily criticize the US government, but it’ll always be in the style of, “What are we, a bunch of Asians?” and every bad thing they see here will just be assumed to be even worse in other countries, “If it’s that bad here, imagine what it must be like in China!”

    • snowfal@lemmy.zip
      9·
      14 days ago

      For the majority of American libertarians that I’ve known, the logic at the root of it is that initiating physical violence is always morally wrong, and that because government must by necessity enforce its laws with initiated physical violence, or at least the threat there of, government itself is morally wrong. They argue that capitalism is a series of voluntary and peaceful agreements, and nobody’s physically forcing anyone to do anything, and so therefore it’s the best system that could ever exist.

      The appeal of the philosophy is that it’s so simple. You don’t need any understanding of economics, social contract, history, or the living conditions of people you’ve never met to understand that initiating violence is wrong. Most libertarians I’ve known will inevitably fall back on the moral argument of initiated physical violence, the non-aggression principle, when all other arguments fail. Show them as many statistics as you want, and none of it will matter because government interrupts the peaceful natural order of capitalism, and therefore will always be morally wrong.

      And so their political orientation becomes not to improve conditions for all, but to return dollars unjustly stolen through taxation to their naturally rightful owners, the bourgeoisie, and restore the world to its natural, utopian free market state where everything is a business and everyone has an equal opportunity to become a billionaire. Without the government violence of taxation and regulation, everything will just kind of naturally sort itself out. After all, no one would willingly do business with abusers or predators, so those kinds of people would never succeed or gain power, right?

      It’s a brilliant trap because it disincentives people from studying economics, political philosophy, or non-American forms of government. Why waste time on any of that when you can cast it all under the umbrella of “statism”. I don’t need to learn how any of these systems work, because they all rely on the initiation of physical aggression, so they’re all morally wrong. And so the fact that American schools don’t teach any of these things isn’t a problem that needs to be corrected, because they think the existence of public education at all is immoral.